As Eid Al-Adha the Muslim Day of Sacrifice approaches the smell of fine cookies in the West Bank’s rural villages and towns spreads.
The smells are good but the shapes of cookies vary from one neighborhood to another. Each housewife has her own flavor and mixture for making cookies.
Mixture and fire
Palestinian elder Khadija Salaima known as Um Hassan from the town of Akraba is famous for making cookies for Eid with a special flavor in her town.
Um Hassan told the PIC reporter “Women today do not know much of what we used to prepare in the past. I put a lot of spices and fennel from mountains and valleys and not from markets thus making it taste better in addition to nutmeg that women do not know these days.”
Although Eid Al-Adha is dedicated for sacrifice and distributing meat many Palestinian families are keen to prepare sweets especially holiday cookies in various forms to decorate their tables as part of the hospitality arrangements for visitors.
Um Salama is proud of the quality of her cookies which she attributes to her ‘good touch’ and method of preparing the cookies. For example she uses light fire that makes the cookies ripe in a better manner than using excessive fire as she says.
Incomplete joy
Making Eid cookies is a joy and a pleasure for the citizens yet it brings feelings of longing for some families who miss their loved ones during these seasons who are behind Israeli bars.
The mother of prisoner Hamza Mahmoud from Huwwara village told the PIC reporter “The joy of the Eid remains incomplete. There are thousands of families who spend this Eid while their sons are still behind Israeli bars longing for them and wishing they were among them.”
Speaking of the joy of making Eid cookies she said: “There is no alternative to making homemade cookies on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha unlike cities where people buy ready cookies which lack the flavor of the countryside.”
She added “Eid cookies are made with the company of neighbors and women amid conversations interesting and beautiful stories and prayers to the families of martyrs pilgrims prisoners and others.”
Heritage and folk tradition
Activist Safia Ezzedine believes that making Eid cookies is a popular tradition and a great heritage both in the countryside and cities in the West Bank noting that its presence is stronger in the countryside where people adhere to this tradition according to their financial capacity. She points out that it is offered to relatives and visitors with desserts and Keba with meat.
She concluded to the PIC reporter “Eid cookies have a special symbol; it is a traditional folk habit that brings happiness and joy to the hearts of people which is incomplete because of the occupation and its aggressive practices against our people. Every day there are arrests and thousands of new detainees.”
